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Things I Learnt in 2020 (drobinin.com)
221 points by valzevul on Dec 30, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 65 comments



Re "broon sauce" i.e. brown sauce:

> The recipe is a mystery, and every chippy mixes their own. However now I know the secret: Just dilute down some yourself. Add vinegar to brown sauce

I had the same self-referential discussion with a chippie in Scotland.

"So what exactly is in brown sauce?"

"Dunno mate, it's just got brown sauce in it."

-

Re Roman numerals as multipliers:

I think this must be a recent invention (the example cited is 18th c). In Roman times, 2000 was MM, not IIM, and likewise MM did not mean one million, like the photo shows.


The leveled up version is trying to figure out what exactly the local kebab shop is doing to their salad. It's sitting there in some clear liquid, but what is that liquid?! Vinegar for sure, lemon juice probably, but what else?!


It's probably lemon juice, olive oil, and salt.


As if vinager is a singular product. Vinagars are very diverse. I wouldn't recommend a layperson to add natural vinager to a brown sauce, you're probably ruining it. I would recommend to use a brown vinagar, but without further explanation we are then back at the start of the question.


Given that malt vinegar is the usual chippy condiment, I'd expect it to be that. Or the cheapest possible "non-brewed condiment".


Around here malt vinegar is certainly not what people expect when you say 'vinegar'.


It's a context-dependent condiment.


I went into the article expecting it be full of usual banal platitudes, but it's a cute little list of random stuff. I was also pleasantly surprised to see 'ek number' on the list though.


As an Indian who's lived almost 4 decades in India, I have never heard of "ek number" as the response to a joke, or even ever used in the stated context of the joke being rated no 1. The closest I can think of is the phrase being directed at the joker, not the joke; a sort of "Oh, you're a first rate a-hole for cracking that joke". It's a terminated "Ek number ka ... (haraami?)", which is the only form I've ever heard this phrase.


‘Ek number’ is more of a Maharashtra thing IMO. You’ll hear it quite frequently in MH state


I speak Marathi, but haven't ever lived in Maharashtra. In Hindi, it wasn't uncommon to hear "ek number ka ...", but to me the context was always a negging directed at the audacity of the joker, and never as a rating of the joke itself. I also haven't heard anybody use "ek number .." in Hindi in any form in a very long time. It's possible the phrase evolved different contexts and implications in the two languages.


I was born and brought up in Mumbai, Maharashtra and Marathi is my native language.

Ek number was commonly used in my childhood days in Mumbai and it means "First class" or "Classic". Typical uses: ek number joke, ek number daaru (daaru = alcohol, liquor), ek number maal (First class, good looking, hot girl), ek number vada pav (classic food dish) etc.


I speak Marathi as well as Hindi and probably use that term daily just like what that article mentioned. AFAICT most of my friends and family also use that term frequently. Example usage could be “ek number Bhau...” when complimenting some post on WhatsApp


There is a great,devotional Sufi song which goes "Ali da pehla number", which translates to "Ali is at number one" meaning "Ali is the greatest". I think the song is in the Sindhi language. Also in Mumbai slang, "Do number" means shady. As in, "do number ka dhanda" i.e. illegal business. "Do" rhyming with the English "go" means two.


Same here. The most common term I've heard is badhiya or mast or even jhakas. Never heard anyone say ek number.

The closest I can think is ek-dam but a person would rarely say that in response to a joke.


"Mast" and "jhakas" sound like Maharashtra- or even Mumbai-specific words. As a North Indian Hindi speaker I can attest they are not used in North India. Specifically "mast" has a different connotation in the North, something like 'entranced', not just 'nice' the way it is used for almost anything in Mumbai.


Same, I did not expect that at all. Funnily enough, I haven't heard it used much outside North India so I didn't think it was as popular.

Other replies say it's a common phrase in Maharashtra too, TIL.


About artificially created language I really like Toki Pona - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona

Very minimalist, nice sounds.


I was quite confused by the examples for Solresol

> Will you go to the countryside this year? - Fadoremi?

> Will you go to the theatre tonight? - Soldoremi?

I was very intrigued at how much meaning could be packed into such a short word, given only seven phonemes.

Finally I found a dictionary and found that those words just mean "countryside" and "theater" respectively.


Yeah, that's true.

These sentences were examples from the language creator's original book [1], and his initial idea was to use nouns as a way to ask a question, and then add a personal pronoun for an affirmative statement:

> Will you go to the theatre tonight? - Soldoremi? > I will go to the theatre tonight. - Soldoremi dore.

As far as I know, later it was changed by the followers and the Solresol grammar [2] tries to move away from this approach, e.g

> Dore fasifa ladofa fami ladosol (I want to read this book [3])

instead of

> Ladosol dore.

[1]: http://www.ifost.org.au/~gregb/solresol/sudre-book.pdf [2]: http://mozai.com/writing/not_mine/solresol/ [3]: https://solresol.blogspot.com/2012/07/learning-solresol-less...


A lot of fun facts here - definitely a pick-me-up as the year closes out.

I'm cancelling my upcoming polar bear liver eating party ASAP.


Quote: "The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin A in humans is 0.9mg, and you can get that from eating just one-tenth of a gram of the liver from a well-fed polar bear. The entire liver contains enough vitamin A to kill as many as 52 adults!"

I was amused by this one as well :).


Just invite more than 92 people.

Oh, wait. Covid...


Ogden's basic English - interesting find. I wonder if the word list for OBE can be used as "most basic words" for practicing other languages?

Would such a "unit vector" for basic speech be similar in other languages?


No. Not only because what's "basic" varies between languages, but because it's precisely the most "basic"-seeming lemmas that map most poorly between languages.

Take the first ten "operations" of the Ogden list: come, get, give, go, keep, let, make, put, seem, take. Every one of these is the kind of word that has multiple non-interchangeable "synonyms" that you could use, depending on context. Expressing the "same" "concept" in another language is kind of like being forced to choose between them, when there's generally no 1:1 mapping.


That an "epidemiologist" is not typically a scientist who studies epidemics, but is more usually a bureaucrat with a master's degree in public health.


From the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics[0]:

> Epidemiologists are public health professionals who investigate patterns and causes of disease and injury in humans. They seek to reduce the risk and occurrence of negative health outcomes through research, community education and health policy.

So to cavalierly categorize epidemiologists as "more usually a bureaucrat" speaks to a myopic understanding of what value they provide.

0 - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/epi...


You’re arguing with a connotation when the denotation is true. Most epidemiologists are bureaucrats not scientists. They don’t do research and probably can’t, certainly not at the level of someone who has done a Ph.D. Also, let’s be honest. The FDA and CDC have been of negative value in the US, on net, during the current pandemic. Lying about masks, lying about the threshold needed for herd immunity, prosecuting distilleries for making alcohol for disinfectant, keeping KN95 masks from being allowed for months, not allowing human challenge trials... The list goes on.


> Most epidemiologists are bureaucrats not scientists. They don’t do research and probably can’t ...

Please reference the definition quoted and provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Regarding the rest of your post, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. And I am entitled to disagree.


A public health professional who does health policy and community outreach is a bureaucrat, not a scientist. The subset of epidemiologists who do research are scientists, whether they have a Ph.D. or somehow got into it without ever having graduated high school. Some of the bureaucrats are also scientists but most aren’t.


> A public health professional who does health policy and community outreach is a bureaucrat, not a scientist.

Who are epidemiologists?

When disease outbreaks or other threats emerge, epidemiologists are on the scene to investigate. Often called "Disease Detectives", epidemiologists search for the cause of disease, identify people who are at risk, determine how to control or stop the spread or prevent it from happening again. Physicians, veterinarians, scientists, and other health professionals often train to be "Disease Detectives".

source: https://www.cdc.gov/careerpaths/k12teacherroadmap/epidemiolo...

See also: Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) (https://www.cdc.gov/eis/index.html)

What EIS Officers Do

EIS officers serve on the front lines of public health, protecting Americans and the global community, while training under the guidance of seasoned mentors. When disease outbreaks or other public health threats emerge, EIS officers investigate, identify the cause, rapidly implement control measures, and collect evidence to recommend preventive actions.

source: https://www.cdc.gov/eis/what-eis-officers-do/index.html


C.f. "health physicist"


Is this a covid skepticism thing? Because it sounds like a covid skepticism thing.


Is that an ad hominem? Because it sure sounds like an ad hominem.


How so?


Citation needed.


Annecdatum: I know someone with an MS in public health who is working as an epidemiologist for the state government.


It's an observation not an argument. Go look up who hires epidemiologists, what credentials they require, and what they expect of the employee in the job role.


I used "by the by" in a 6th grade English paper, and was marked off for it.


> ANSI K 100.1-1974

On a related note, there is also BS 6008:1980, a British Standard for making a cup of tea; later ratified as ISO 3103.


Some extra interesting stuff:

[Pie Barm] One of the things I miss most about living in the UK is its breakfast sandwiches from manchester. Usually some mix of sausage, egg, bacon, beans on a big white barm/bap. Can't seem to get anywhere near as good sandwiches here in Canada. [1]

[Erstwhile] There word ere is still used almost the same as its Aer root word [2]

[Ogden's Basic English] XKCD had a play on this [3] using the first 1000 most common words. The Simple english version of wikipedia also feeds off of this basic 850 set [4]

[boh!] Was referenced in the most recent spider man movie [5]

[Why we can smell copper] Nile red had a video in 2019 where he synthesized the organic compound that is created by touching copper [6]

[1] https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/great-british-breakfast-...

[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ere

[3] https://xkcd.com/1133/

[4] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_write_Sim...

[5] https://youtu.be/NBuPOofPplY?t=139

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqLH-nTZEOc


Wow, thank you for the extra bits!

I can't believe I have missed the boh! reference in the most recent Spider Man movie.

Re: ere, I learnt it the hard way with the word "ereyesterday" (and on that note, the word "overmorrow" is nice too) .


Bacon and sausage are quite different outside the UK too as I found out in Australia and North America. Still you can't meet a decent American/Canadian breakfast with a stack of pancakes, a bit less portable though!


Let me also introduce you to one of Scotland's finest...the Square Sausage:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorne_sausage


It's alright, I spent half my childhood in Scotland, I already had it a lot but I don't really like it. Prefer a good black pudding supper.


> Prefer a good black pudding supper.

Ah, yes. That's my dad's favourite thing, though bizarrely with no batter.

Can't say I eat square sausage much myself these days, despite being a treat (especially sandwiched in a roll between a tatty scone and a fried egg) it gives me hellish indigestion.


On TV Pickup, it's no longer such a thing as it was in the 1980s and 1990s; Tom Scott has a video mentioning it - Dinorwig pumped storage hydroelectric power plant in the UK. One of the reasons for building it was to provide power to the UK national grid at short notice, and the national grid organisation would study the TV schedules for the UK's 4-5 terrestrial channels, and put Dinorwig on standby for power generation. Now with so many different channels and streaming, there isn't the same effect of the country all having an ad break at the same time, and Dinorwig's main use now is in balancing calm moments of solar and wind power generation.

Source:

- https://youtu.be/6Jx_bJgIFhI?t=210


> once a foreigner understands the difference between a Chip butty and a Crisp butty, the doors of the most exclusive private members' clubs will never be closed.

Heh.


Nice! Really interesting facts, it was addictive to read :)

I wonder how you stored this information, did you already prepare a draft? Do you use a "Google Docs"? Or do you have a more fancy way to store these ideas? I find it interesting


Thank you! It's only a fifth of the facts I've shared over the last six months, so feel free to nurture the addiction further :)

That's a very good question: newsletters are rendered from markdown files; each of them is a combination of an intro, a book section, and two sections with articles and facts.

Both facts and articles are stored in a local CSV with my brief comments, and then I manually pick and expand on the ones suitable for the edition.

I mostly use Pocket + IFTTT for storing, and a naive Bash script to automate everything routine related to it (e.g formatting sources).


Nice! Thanks fro sharing ;)


I learnt that I'm a loser.


You learnt, so you aren't a loser! ;)


Knowing that I'm a loser doesn't make be less of a loser.


Some data scientist should try that food triad exercise mentioned in the link.


So... who else has now burned hours on the incompatible food triad?

Seriously, it's killing me. Some kind of fruit and chocolate and something??


A food chemist might be able to figure it out. Three foods or additives that singularly or in pairs would be innocuous. But all three combined, perhaps if exposed to heat, would form a toxin. Sounds like my cooking...


They generally don't post these sorts of answers online so people don't know how to kill others.

There are all sorts of foods that can make you sick or kill you if improperly prepared.

The post is really just saying choose items that pair well with each other but not all together. (The only one I can think of quickly is sugar, yeast, and shaggy mane mushroom, assuming the yeast ends up fermenting the sugar).


Yeast and mushroom go together?


Yeah, a lot of health-focused people add yeast (usually dead, sometimes not) to recipes. I guess as an example more related to myself... I make mead and I'm also an amateur mycologist. Meads can be flavored with spices and fruits. I have seen some meads and beers made with mushrooms or mushroom extracts. I've also seen some mushroom recipes that call for yeast. If you were to make a mead infused with shaggy mane mushroom, you would vomit. Shaggy mane mushroom causes vomiting when alcohol is consumed with it.

This is sort of a cheat to the question though. The foods do pair well together from a flavor perspective, but there's a physiological issue when consumed together.


My favourite solution was espresso, lemon, and milk, until someone came up with a lemon affogato and ruined it.


Ek number post bhai!


What is a knowledge addict?


Simply great.


About Ogden's Basic English, prominent Esperantist and United Nations translator Claude Piron[1] had this to say[2]:

> ""Basic English cut its essential vocabulary to 850 words", says our critic. Let's not discuss the fact that the 850 words of Basic English do not enable you to say, for instance, "Waiter, a tomato salad!". But what is amazing is that Mr Rye appears not to know that people whose mother tongue is other than English have to learn by rote probably twice as many words as what they need in order to get along in an average language, and something like ten times as many as what is necessary to express everything in Esperanto.

Esperanto's basic vocabulary, unlike the basic vocabulary of English (as in Basic English or Nerrière's Globish) is a source of many thousands of words, because the right to combine elements is unlimited, or, to put it otherwise, because of the multiplying effect of many morphemes. The first level of the youth magazine Kontakto uses less than Ogden's 850 words: only 520 lexical elements. Since these include a hundred of vocabulary-enriching words, like igi, (words the Chinese call "empty words"), the list contains only something like 430 semantemes ("full words" in Chinese parlance). But when you read the short stories and the articles written with this limited vocabulary, you don't notice that the author was restricted in his choice of words. Esperanto enables him to be lively, expressive, fun, with a very small lexical basis, precisely because nothing restricts what French speaking mathematicians call the combinatoire (do you say "combinatory"?).

In Esperanto, most roots give birth to dozens of words, easy to form, or forming themselves automatically, by simple reflex, since the patterns are regular, whereas in English, you have to learn a new word for each new concept. Where in Esperanto you make up the adjective with a simple - a, in English you have to learn it by rote, and English differs from most other languages in that very often no similarity of form helps your memory. You don't derive lunar from moon, annual from year, rural from country, urban from city, avuncular from uncle (Esperanto: luna < luno; jara < jaro; kampara < kamparo; urba < urbo; onkla < onklo). And the same problem confronts the learner in other aspects of what is, in most languages, derivation: you don't form dentist from tooth, fraternize from brother or stallion from horse. Rye's statement in this respect is flabbergasting. How can one compare two languages and reach a conclusion so much at odds with reality?"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Piron

[2] http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/why.htm




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